Systems and methods for lifecycle management of limited duration knowledge in automated interaction systems

ABSTRACT

Information utilized in a contact center may be temporary. Facts may be directly verified (primary factor); however, contact centers may not have the resources to perform primary factor determinations. Validation factors may be utilized, such as by providing a customer of a contact center with a response and determining, based on feedback, whether the information is still proving to be valid. Over time, information may become more and more suspect, even if factually correct. Providing the information, such as in a text message to a customer or agent, who in turn is interacting with a customer, and an indication of the aging of the validity of the information, may provide an appropriate level of confidence in a reply to a customer and facilitate more accurate information dissemination.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application claims the benefit of Provisional Patent Application No. 62/363,501, filed on Jul. 18, 2016, and is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has not objected to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.

FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE

The invention relates generally to automated response systems and particularly to such systems utilizing knowledge with a non-static relevance.

BACKGROUND

Interactive automation systems of the prior art rely on accurate and updated sources of knowledge forming a knowledgebase (KB). KB training is performed utilizing historical documents, web pages, transaction logs (chat data), and other static forms of knowledge. These systems are useful in answering factoid-type questions that change infrequently.

SUMMARY

These and other needs are addressed by the various embodiments and configurations of the present invention providing a number of advantages depending on the particular configuration. These and other advantages will be apparent from the disclosure of the invention(s) contained herein.

As an introduction, and in one embodiment, the lifespan or timeframe of learned knowledge is automatically managed. While prior art systems generally perform well with static data, many pieces of knowledge are not only dynamic, but have a limited lifespan of relevance or validity. Embodiments are provided herein for systems and methods to manage a lifespan or timeframe of learned knowledge. Real-time reinforcement of knowledge may also be provided, thereby providing or contributing to self-learning automation systems. In one embodiment, the system is, comprises, or is comprised by a contact center interacting with customers via agents. The interaction may comprise communications in text-based interactions (e.g., text messages, chat, social media, email, etc.). The agents may be presented with responses from the system (e.g., text-based cues) regarding a KB item and/or provide inputs regarding the item. Agent validation may therefore be provided in an assisted mode for confirmation of continued knowledge validity for a KB item. In other embodiments, different media types (e.g., voice, video, etc.) interactions are provided.

Prior systems may present a number of candidates from a KB, potentially a very large number, to a user, which may be based on possibly multiple criteria for relevance. Prior systems present this information since time, data type, source, and/or media type of a candidate may be well beyond the ability of a human user to access and/or give due consideration.

A system may provide, in one embodiment, an item in the KB that may be initially correct and may even remain correct over time or upon an event; however, the item may be identified as less relevant or useful over time. In another embodiment, uncertainty may exist about whether the item is correct due to imperfect feedback, but the correctness diminished over time. In another embodiment, there is uncertainty about whether the item is correct, but accumulated feedback may cause an item to be considered as more correct over time.

A relevance function may be applied to the embodiments to provide a probability that the item is relevant and/or correct at each point in time. In one embodiment, the function is an inquiry, such as, “Was this answer helpful?” The relevance function may be multiplied by and/or combined with other measures of relevance.

Systems and methods, in one embodiment, are provided to perform one or more of:

1. A self-learning text interaction system is trained and continues to adapt to real-time text interactions (e.g., web chat, social media, messaging, etc.).

2. When questions are identified, the system accesses a KB or interaction model and determines whether or not the system has been trained to address the question.

3. The system provides a further check for the lifetime of a candidate response to determine if the data is still valid or aging, which may further comprise aging to increased or decreased validity and/or relevance.

4. If the data has the potential for being invalid, a system may send the data to an agent for “assisted mode,” wherein the agent validates, revalidates, or corrects the item 4 a. The agent may be further provided with the opportunity to indicate the data item is valid indefinitely, to a specific date, decay mode/less valid over time, or no longer valid/give new value.

5. If the data is still valid, then automated response continues and presents the item in an automated response.

By way of non-limiting example:

Customer: “Does the NewsPlus package contain Bloomberg TV?”

Automation checks to see that Bloomberg TV and the NewsPlus answer is valid. If there was no response, or if there was a decayed/invalid response, then an agent-assisted interaction would occur to validate the new or renewed answer.

Automated response: “Yes.”

In another embodiment, the system may respond to an agent in an agent suggestion mode rather than a pure automated response to a received inquiry.

In one embodiment, a system is disclosed, comprising: a data storage; a processor; and a network interface to facilitate communications between an agent of a contact center and a customer device associated with a customer; the processor: receives, via the network interface, a communication from the customer device associated, wherein the communication comprises text; upon determining the text comprises an inquiry, and further determining the inquiry comprises a topic, determining the topic is within a knowledgebase maintained by the data storage; accessing, from the data storage, a validity associated with a response to the topic, wherein the validity is determined, at least in part, by a validation factor; generating a reply, incorporating the response to the topic and an indicia of the validity; and sending, via the network interface, the reply.

In another embodiment, a method is disclosed, comprising: receiving, by a processor, via a network interface configured to facilitate communications between an agent of a contact center and a customer device associated with a customer, a communication from the customer device associated and wherein the communication comprises text; upon determining, by the processor, the text comprises an inquiry, and further determining the inquiry comprises a topic, determining the topic is within a knowledgebase maintained by the data storage; accessing, by the processor from a data storage, a validity associated with a response to the topic, wherein the validity is determined, at least in part, by a validation factor; generating, by the processor, a reply incorporating the response to the topic and an indicia of the validity; and sending, via the network interface, the reply.

In another embodiment, a system is disclosed, comprising: means for receiving, by a processor, via a network interface configured to facilitate communications between an agent of a contact center and a customer device associated with a customer, a communication from the customer device associated and wherein the communication comprises text; means for upon determining, by the processor, the text comprises an inquiry, and further determining the inquiry comprises a topic, determining the topic is within a knowledgebase maintained by the data storage; means for accessing, by the processor from a data storage, a validity associated with a response to the topic, wherein the validity is determined, at least in part, by a validation factor; means for generating, by the processor, a reply incorporating the response to the topic and an indicia of the validity; and means for sending, via the network interface, the reply

The phrases “at least one,” “one or more,” “or,” and “and/or” are open-ended expressions that are both conjunctive and disjunctive in operation. For example, each of the expressions “at least one of A, B and C,” “at least one of A, B, or C,” “one or more of A, B, and C,” “one or more of A, B, or C,” “A, B, and/or C,” and “A, B, or C” means A alone, B alone, C alone, A and B together, A and C together, B and C together, or A, B and C together.

The term “a” or “an” entity refers to one or more of that entity. As such, the terms “a” (or “an”), “one or more,” and “at least one” can be used interchangeably herein. It is also to be noted that the terms “comprising,” “including,” and “having” can be used interchangeably.

The term “automatic” and variations thereof, as used herein, refers to any process or operation, which is typically continuous or semi-continuous, done without material human input when the process or operation is performed. However, a process or operation can be automatic, even though performance of the process or operation uses material or immaterial human input, if the input is received before performance of the process or operation. Human input is deemed to be material if such input influences how the process or operation will be performed. Human input that consents to the performance of the process or operation is not deemed to be “material.”

Aspects of the present disclosure may take the form of an embodiment that is entirely hardware, an embodiment that is entirely software (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may all generally be referred to herein as a “circuit,” “module,” or “system.” Any combination of one or more computer-readable medium(s) may be utilized. The computer-readable medium may be a computer-readable signal medium or a computer-readable storage medium.

A computer-readable storage medium may be, for example, but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer-readable storage medium would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. In the context of this document, a computer-readable storage medium may be any tangible medium that can contain or store a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.

A computer-readable signal medium may include a propagated data signal with computer-readable program code embodied therein, for example, in baseband or as part of a carrier wave. Such a propagated signal may take any of a variety of forms, including, but not limited to, electro-magnetic, optical, or any suitable combination thereof. A computer-readable signal medium may be any computer-readable medium that is not a computer-readable storage medium and that can communicate, propagate, or transport a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. Program code embodied on a computer-readable medium may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including, but not limited to, wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc., or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

The terms “determine,” “calculate,” “compute,” and variations thereof, as used herein, are used interchangeably and include any type of methodology, process, mathematical operation or technique.

The term “means” as used herein shall be given its broadest possible interpretation in accordance with 35 U.S.C., Section 112(f) and/or Section 112, Paragraph 6. Accordingly, a claim incorporating the term “means” shall cover all structures, materials, or acts set forth herein, and all of the equivalents thereof Further, the structures, materials or acts and the equivalents thereof shall include all those described in the summary, brief description of the drawings, detailed description, abstract, and claims themselves.

The preceding is a simplified summary of the invention to provide an understanding of some aspects of the invention. This summary is neither an extensive nor exhaustive overview of the invention and its various embodiments. It is intended neither to identify key or critical elements of the invention nor to delineate the scope of the invention but to present selected concepts of the invention in a simplified form as an introduction to the more detailed description presented below. As will be appreciated, other embodiments of the invention are possible utilizing, alone or in combination, one or more of the features set forth above or described in detail below. Also, while the disclosure is presented in terms of exemplary embodiments, it should be appreciated that an individual aspect of the disclosure can be separately claimed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present disclosure is described in conjunction with the appended figures:

FIG. 1 depicts a system in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 2 depicts a validity curve diagram in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 3 depicts a first validity curve diagram in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 depicts a second validity curve diagram in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 depicts a system in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 6 depicts a first method in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 7 depicts a second method in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure; and

FIG. 8 depicts a third method in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The ensuing description provides embodiments only and is not intended to limit the scope, applicability, or configuration of the claims. Rather, the ensuing description will provide those skilled in the art with an enabling description for implementing the embodiments. It will be understood that various changes may be made in the function and arrangement of elements without departing from the spirit and scope of the appended claims.

Any reference in the description comprising an element number, without a subelement identifier when a subelement identifier exists in the figures, when used in the plural, is intended to reference any two or more elements with a like element number. When such a reference is made in the singular form, it is intended to reference one of the elements with the like element number without limitation to a specific one of the elements. Any explicit usage herein to the contrary or providing further qualification or identification shall take precedence.

The exemplary systems and methods of this disclosure will also be described in relation to analysis software, modules, and associated analysis hardware. However, to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the present disclosure, the following description omits well-known structures, components, and devices that may be shown in block diagram form, and are well known or are otherwise summarized.

For purposes of explanation, numerous details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present disclosure. It should be appreciated, however, that the present disclosure may be practiced in a variety of ways beyond the specific details set forth herein.

With reference now to FIG. 1, communication system 100 is discussed in accordance with at least some embodiments of the present disclosure. The communication system 100 may be a distributed system and, in some embodiments, comprises a communication network 104 connecting one or more communication devices 108 to a work assignment mechanism 116, which may be owned and operated by an enterprise administering contact center 102 in which a plurality of resources 112 is distributed to handle incoming work items (in the form of contacts) from customer communication devices 108.

Contact center 102 is variously embodied to receive and/or send messages that are or are associated with work items and the processing and management (e.g., scheduling, assigning, routing, generating, accounting, receiving, monitoring, reviewing, etc.) of the work items by one or more resources 112. The work items are generally generated and/or received requests for a processing resource 112 embodied as, or a component of, an electronic and/or electromagnetically conveyed message. Contact center 102 may include more or fewer components than illustrated and/or provide more or fewer services than illustrated. The border indicating contact center 102 may be a physical boundary (e.g., a building, campus, etc.), legal boundary (e.g., company, enterprise, etc.), and/or logical boundary (e.g., resources 112 utilized to provide services to customers for a customer of contact center 102).

Furthermore, the border illustrating contact center 102 may be as-illustrated or, in other embodiments, include alterations and/or more and/or fewer components than illustrated. For example, in other embodiments, one or more of resources 112, customer database 118, and/or other component may connect to routing engine 132 via communication network 104, such as when such components connect via a public network (e.g., Internet). In another embodiment, communication network 104 may be a private utilization of, at least in part, a public network (e.g., VPN); a private network located, at least partially, within contact center 102; or a mixture of private and public networks that may be utilized to provide electronic communication of components described herein. Additionally, it should be appreciated that components illustrated as external, such as social media server 130 and/or other external data sources 134 may be within contact center 102 physically and/or logically, but still be considered external for other purposes. For example, contact center 102 may operate social media server 130 (e.g., a website operable to receive user messages from customers and/or resources 112) as one means to interact with customers via their customer communication device 108.

Customer communication devices 108 are embodied as external to contact center 102 as they are under the more direct control of their respective user or customer. However, embodiments may be provided whereby one or more customer communication devices 108 are physically and/or logically located within contact center 102 and are still considered external to contact center 102, such as when a customer utilizes customer communication device 108 at a kiosk and attaches to a private network of contact center 102 (e.g., WiFi connection to a kiosk, etc.), within or controlled by contact center 102.

It should be appreciated that the description of contact center 102 provides at least one embodiment whereby the following embodiments may be more readily understood without limiting such embodiments. Contact center 102 may be further altered, added to, and/or subtracted from without departing from the scope of any embodiment described herein and without limiting the scope of the embodiments or claims, except as expressly provided.

Additionally, contact center 102 may incorporate and/or utilize social media website 130 and/or other external data sources 134 may be utilized to provide one means for a resource 112 to receive and/or retrieve contacts and connect to a customer of a contact center 102. Other external data sources 134 may include data sources, such as service bureaus, third-party data providers (e.g., credit agencies, public and/or private records, etc.). Customers may utilize their respective customer communication device 108 to send/receive communications utilizing social media server 130.

In accordance with at least some embodiments of the present disclosure, the communication network 104 may comprise any type of known communication medium or collection of communication media and may use any type of protocols to transport electronic messages between endpoints. The communication network 104 may include wired and/or wireless communication technologies. The Internet is an example of the communication network 104 that constitutes an Internet Protocol (IP) network consisting of many computers, computing networks, and other communication devices located all over the world, which are connected through many telephone systems and other means. Other examples of the communication network 104 include, without limitation, a standard Plain Old Telephone System (POTS), an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), a Local Area Network (LAN), a Wide Area Network (WAN), a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) network, a Voice over IP (VoIP) network, a cellular network, and any other type of packet-switched or circuit-switched network known in the art. In addition, it can be appreciated that the communication network 104 need not be limited to any one network type and instead may be comprised of a number of different networks and/or network types. As one example, embodiments of the present disclosure may be utilized to increase the efficiency of a grid-based contact center 102. Examples of a grid-based contact center 102 are more fully described in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2010/0296417 to Steiner, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference. Moreover, the communication network 104 may comprise a number of different communication media, such as coaxial cable, copper cable/wire, fiber-optic cable, antennas for transmitting/receiving wireless messages, and combinations thereof.

The communication devices 108 may correspond to customer communication devices. In accordance with at least some embodiments of the present disclosure, a customer may utilize their communication device 108 to initiate a work item. Illustrative work items include, but are not limited to, a contact directed toward and received at a contact center 102, a web page request directed toward and received at a server farm (e.g., collection of servers), a media request, an application request (e.g., a request for application resources location on a remote application server, such as a SIP application server), and the like. The work item may be in the form of a message or collection of messages transmitted over the communication network 104. For example, the work item may be transmitted as a telephone call, a packet or collection of packets (e.g., IP packets transmitted over an IP network), an email message, an Instant Message, an SMS message, a fax, and combinations thereof In some embodiments, the communication may not necessarily be directed at the work assignment mechanism 116, but rather may be on some other server in the communication network 104 where it is harvested by the work assignment mechanism 116, which generates a work item for the harvested communication, such as social media server 130. An example of such a harvested communication includes a social media communication that is harvested by the work assignment mechanism 116 from a social media network or server 130. Exemplary architectures for harvesting social media communications and generating work items based thereon are described in U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 12/784,369, 12/706,942, and 12/707,277, filed Mar. 20, 2010, Feb. 17, 2010, and Feb. 17, 2010, respectively; each of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

The format of the work item may depend upon the capabilities of the communication device 108 and the format of the communication. In particular, work items are logical representations within a contact center 102 of work to be performed in connection with servicing a communication received at contact center 102 (and, more specifically, the work assignment mechanism 116). The communication may be received and maintained at the work assignment mechanism 116, a switch or server connected to the work assignment mechanism 116, or the like, until a resource 112 is assigned to the work item representing that communication. At which point, the work assignment mechanism 116 passes the work item to a routing engine 132 to connect the communication device 108, which initiated the communication, with the assigned resource 112.

Although the routing engine 132 is depicted as being separate from the work assignment mechanism 116, the routing engine 132 may be incorporated into the work assignment mechanism 116 or its functionality may be executed by the work assignment engine 120.

In accordance with at least some embodiments of the present disclosure, the communication devices 108 may comprise any type of known communication equipment or collection of communication equipment. Examples of a suitable communication device 108 include, but are not limited to, a personal computer, laptop, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), cellular phone, smart phone, telephone, or combinations thereof In general, each communication device 108 may be adapted to support video, audio, text, and/or data communications with other communication devices 108 as well as the processing resources 112. The type of medium used by the communication device 108 to communicate with other communication devices 108 or processing resources 112 may depend upon the communication applications available on the communication device 108.

In accordance with at least some embodiments of the present disclosure, the work item is sent toward a collection of processing resources 112 via the combined efforts of the work assignment mechanism 116 and routing engine 132. The resources 112 can either be completely automated resources (e.g., Interactive Voice Response (IVR) units, processors, servers, or the like), human resources utilizing communication devices (e.g., human agents utilizing a computer, telephone, laptop, etc.), or any other resource known to be used in contact center 102.

As discussed above, the work assignment mechanism 116 and resources 112 may be owned and operated by a common entity in a contact center 102 format. In some embodiments, the work assignment mechanism 116 may be administered by multiple enterprises, each of which has its own dedicated resources 112 connected to the work assignment mechanism 116.

In some embodiments, the work assignment mechanism 116 comprises a work assignment engine 120, which enables the work assignment mechanism 116 to make intelligent routing decisions for work items. In some embodiments, the work assignment engine 120 is configured to administer and make work assignment decisions in a queueless contact center 102, as is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/882,950, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference. In other embodiments, the work assignment engine 120 may be configured to execute work assignment decisions in a traditional queue-based (or skill-based) contact center 102.

The work assignment engine 120 and its various components may reside in the work assignment mechanism 116 or in a number of different servers or processing devices. In some embodiments, cloud-based computing architectures can be employed whereby one or more components of the work assignment mechanism 116 are made available in a cloud or network such that they can be shared resources among a plurality of different users. Work assignment mechanism 116 may access customer database 118, such as to retrieve records, profiles, purchase history, previous work items, and/or other aspects of a customer known to contact center 102. Customer database 118 may be updated in response to a work item and/or input from resource 112 processing the work item.

It should be appreciated that one or more components of contact center 102 may be implemented in a cloud-based architecture in their entirety, or components thereof (e.g., hybrid), in addition to embodiments being entirely on-premises. In one embodiment, customer communication device 108 is connected to one of resources 112 via components entirely hosted by a cloud-based service provider, wherein processing and data storage elements may be dedicated to the operator of contact center 102 or shared or distributed amongst a plurality of service provider customers, one being contact center 102.

In one embodiment, a message is generated by customer communication device 108 and received, via communication network 104, at work assignment mechanism 116. The message received by a contact center 102, such as at the work assignment mechanism 116, is generally, and herein, referred to as a “contact.” Routing engine 132 routes the contact to at least one of resources 112 for processing.

FIG. 2 depicts validity curve diagram 200 in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure. Many facts often degrade over time. A particular transient fact, such as a data or datum, may have a level of validity that increases and/or decreases with the passage of time and/or events. As used herein, a transient fact is a known element, which may be known to be true in at least one circumstance. Transient facts are not “facts” in which information is known to have an absolute certainty, such as a truism (e.g., one plus one equals two, electronic devices use electricity, etc.) or other non-transient fact that can be determined to be accurate based on a primary factor (e.g., accessing an authoritative source, calculation, etc.) and, once established, remains indefinitely. Instead, transient facts may have a certain degree of truth and, in particular, a usefulness for a particular topic. For example, “pull the choke,” may be a “fact” associated with a hard-to-start engine. However, as fewer and fewer engines utilize carburetors or have operator accessible chokes, the “fact” associated with starting a difficult to start engine by pulling the choke has lost some, or even most, of its validity. Validation factors, such as feedback from agents and/or customers may provide a secondary indication as to whether a transient fact is, or remains, true or not or if the validity and/or reliability of the transient fact is changing.

Contact centers rarely have the resources to investigate whether a particular problem-resolution set is true as time, and other events, occur. What is true today may not be true tomorrow. Conversely, previously unknown or false response may prove to be true as time progresses and/or events occur. As a result, the issue of “my car won't start,” within the topic of automobile troubleshooting/non-starting, may have a reply of “pull the choke” which, while once true, is almost certainly going to fail today. However, the future often comes with surprises and cars may again have manual chokes and the response returning to validity. While such automotive features may change very slowly, web-based services, consumer electronics, and other modern systems and devices change more frequently. For example, “How do I authenticate my phone to my garage door opener?” may have many solutions and many of those solutions will become more and/or less valid over time.

Contact centers, such as contact center 102, often receive inquiries from customers that have a resolution that while once accurate has now changed to become less accurate. Alternatively, a particular resolution may have an accurate but suspect validity, such as an undocumented feature, that is subsequently validated and becomes more valid over time. For example, a particular consumer electronic device may have an undocumented feature wherein pressing the power button three times performs a reset operation. Utilization of such a feature may be particularly useful if the documented reset operation is inoperable, such as requiring interaction with the display of the consumer electronic device which has become frozen.

In one embodiment validity curves 202 illustrate validity changing over time. It should be appreciated that the validity curves 202 are on a relative timescale with respect to each individual validity curve 202 and do not define a timescale in absolute terms nor a timescale in reference to any one or more other validity curves 202. The timescale of validity curve diagram 200, for any one of validity curves 202, may be a few seconds, or less, to many years. Validity curve 202A illustrates a relatively quickly degrading validity for a particular transient fact. Validity curve 202A may be associated with an assumed or incorrectly documented feature that has several feedback events all indicating a lack of validity. Validity curve 202B may illustrate a particular transient fact that has a high validity at an initial time but fades as time progresses, such as when a particular issue becomes associated with subsequent alternative and preferred resolutions. Validity curve 202C illustrates a curve that may be associated with an initial low validity but feedback initially proves valid, thereby improving validity, which then in turn fades over time to become less valid. Validity curve 202D illustrates an initial low validity but improves over time. For example, validity curve 202D may be associated with an unexpected resolution for a particular issue, which may even be counter-intuitive, but subsequent feedback proves the resolution to be correct and therefore valid.

In other embodiments, an agent is presented with a number of knowledgebase entry of transitory and non-transitory facts with one or more indicia of the current time and position upon the respective validity curve, with respect to the transitory facts. As a benefit, an agent may see that a particular knowledgebase entry is gaining, losing, or maintaining a particular validity and may then use such information to select or omit presentation of the knowledgebase entry to accordingly. For example, a customer having an issue with an electronic device may cause an agent to be presented with a great number of potential resolutions. However, by providing an agent with the top most valid, or most improving validity, the agent may be able to provide the customer with a recently discovered resolution or, at least, a better resolution or resolution potential. Similarly, knowledgebase elements that are proving no longer effective, such as due to changes implemented (e.g., new operating system, new model, etc.) that cause a prior effective resolution to become ineffective, may be de-emphasized, presented at the end of a list, or otherwise provided with an indicia that such facts associated with the resolution are losing, or have lost, favor. The agent, when a human embodiment of resource 112, may then apply their own knowledge and additional information gathered from the customer to select the most appropriate fact to present. The agent, when an automated embodiment of resource 112 may select the most appropriate fact or facts and/or eliminate the least appropriate fact or facts from further consideration and presentation to the customer via customer communication device 108.

FIG. 3 depicts validity curve diagram 300 in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure. In one embodiment, validity curve diagram 300 illustrates validity curve 302. Validity curve 302 may be formed by the occurrence of events and/or the passage of time. Additionally, validity curve 302 may be associated with different agent prompts 306 provided to agents, such as one or more resources 112, when embodied as a human agent. The agent then provides interaction with a customer of contact center 102 incorporating one of agent prompt 306.

In one embodiment, validity curve 302 is initially associated with prompt 306A selected to receive an answer to a question for which no suggestion as to the answer is provided. Prompt 306A may be provided to an agent after an interaction with a customer, such as via network 104 to one of customer communication device 108. At a different point in time, agent prompt 306B may be presented to an agent as a suggestion, such as when the validity has not been established to the point of being authoritative. Indicia of validity may be provided as a scale (e.g., 1-10), category (e.g., “reliable,” “may be helpful,” etc.), ranking (e.g., low, medium, high) and/or other indicia of relative validity. In another embodiment, validity may be incorporated into the prompt itself, such as, “may [help resolve the issue],” “should [help resolve the problem],” “will [help resolve the problem],” “will not [help resolve the problem],” etc.

in another embodiment, such as a point later in time, validity curve 302 becomes sufficiently valid to be reliable and may be associated with presenting agent prompt 306C as an instruction to provide to the agent for dissemination to the customer. As time goes on, validity curve 302 may become associated with decreased liability due to aging and/or other events. For example, agent prompt 306D may occur at a point in time wherein validity, although once high, has now become more suspect. In yet another embodiment, validity curve 302 becomes even less reliable, such as to again prompt an agent to provide a response in agent dialogue 306E without offering any suggestion.

In another embodiment, validity curve 304 is provided which decays at a greater rate relative to validity curve 302. For example, both validity curves 302 and 304 may initially prompt an agent with agent prompt 306A and become more reliable to begin suggesting a resolution at agent prompt 306B. However, should the feedback associated with agent prompt 306B be negative, validity curve 304 may deviate from validity curve 302 such as to become more suspect and provide agent prompt 306F whereby validity is indicated as being more suspect and agent prompt 306F is merely suggestive, such as to indicate to the agent receiving agent prompt 306F that an alternative resolution, if available or otherwise known to the agent, may be more suitably applied. As a further option, at a point in the future, agent prompt 306G is provided to indicate to an agent to not use and/or discontinue using a resolution which may have been previously reliable.

As can be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art, validity curves, may have various timeframes, slopes, peak(s), valley(s), and or other aspects to indicate the changes of a validity for a transient fact or other element of a knowledgebase.

Interactions to and from a user is provided to and from an automated system (e.g., processor, server, etc.) and an agent, such as via a text message, dialog box, and/or text-to-speech message delivered via whisper-mode audio. However, in certain other embodiments, interactions may be provided directly between an automated system and a customer, such as when resource 112 is embodied as an automated agent (e.g., IVR, text-based automated interaction system, etc.). In still other embodiments, other communication media (e.g., video, audio, social media, etc.) may be utilized to facilitate the interaction directly or via a human agent.

FIG. 4 depicts validity curve diagram 400 in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure. In one embodiment, validity curve 402 is initially below line 404 and within area 408, which may be indicative of a validity that is seeking to enhance validity and/or confirm non-validity. For example, while validity curve 402 is within area 408 agents may be instructed via agent prompt 412 to suggest a response devoid of the response associated with validity curve 402, perform an alternative action, to provide the result as to whether the action was successful or not. A reply devoid of the response may omit the response or, in another embodiment, actively dissuade performing the response (e.g., “Do not press the power button three times, this no longer works.”). When communicating directly with a customer, embodiments may omit such a response to avoid confusion. However, in other embodiments, a reply devoid of the response may be provided as a precautionary warning (e.g., “Do not press the power button three times, loss of data may result.”). While validity curve 402 is within area 406 the agent may be provided with agent dialogue 410 instructing the agent as to an action believed to be successful. All actions may solicit feedback from the agent and/or customer to determine the future curve of validity curve 402.

FIG. 5 depicts system 500 in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure. In one embodiment, customer 502 utilizes customer communication device 504, such as a particular embodiment of customer communication device 108 incorporating text-based communication ability, to interact with agent 512 via network 104. Server 506 may receive an initial inquiry from customer 502 utilizing customer communication device 504 and determine the inquiry requires a response associated with a topic that is within the knowledgebase 508. Knowledgebase 508 may comprise one or more data repositories associated with particular topics, customers, issues, and/or other customer service functionality provided by contact center 102. Upon server 506 determining that knowledgebase 508 has relevant information related to the inquiry provided via customer communication device 504, agent 512 via agent communication device 510 may be prompted with an agent dialogue offering a recommended course of action to provide to customer 502.

Server 506 may be a standalone device, multiple device, distributed device (e.g., “cloud processor,” virtual machine, distributed processor, etc.), and/or other computing device. Additionally, server 506 may be integrated into, integrated by, co-integrated with, or in communication with one or more of work assignment mechanism 116, work assignment engine 120, and/or routing engine 132. As can be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art, system 500 may be reconfigured such as to change interactions and/or the communication pathways utilizing network 104 and/or an alternative network (e.g., intranet).

FIG. 6 depicts method 600 in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure. In one embodiment, process 600 begins with step 602 receiving a communication from a customer such as upon customer 502 utilizing customer communication device 504 connected to network 104 to send the message received by server 506 to interact with agent 512 via agent communication device 510. Server 506 may then determine at step 604 that the communication comprises an inquiry and, at step 606, determine that the inquiry is associated with a topic within the knowledgebase, such as knowledgebase 508. Server 506 then generates a reply with indicia of validity at step 608 and presents the reply at step 610. In one embodiment, reply 610 is provided to agent 512 via the communication device 510. In another embodiment, reply 610 is presented directly to customer 502 via customer communication device 504.

FIG. 7 depicts method 700 in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure. In one embodiment, process 700 begins at step 702 wherein feedback to reply, such as the reply presented in step 610 (e.g., see FIG. 6), is received, such as by server 506. Step 702 may be received while the interaction between customer 502 and agent 512 is ongoing, following the interaction, and/or at a later time utilizing the same or different communication media. Feedback 704 may be determined to be positive or negative with respect to the reply. Upon determining the feedback is positive at step 704, step 706 is executed whereby validity indicia associated with reply 610 is incremented. Alternatively, if it is determined at step 704 that the feedback was not positive, step 708 decrements the validity indicia. Step 710 updates the indicia of validity following the execution of either step 706 or step 708.

In another embodiment, a rate of decay is generated or updated. Rate of decay 712 may be determined based upon the rate by which one or more feedbacks are received related to a particular reply and/or topic. Additionally, and/or alternatively, the rate of decay 712 may be determined based on consistency, or lack thereof, between positive and negative feedback associated with a particular reply and/or topic. For example, a particular reply received at step 702 is one of a consistent replies all being determined as positive by step 704. As a result, the rate of decay 712 may be set very low to provide the reply 610 having high validity and likely to maintain that level of validity. In another example, feedback for a particular issue may be received only rarely but is universally positive. In which case, step 702 may set a rate of decay 712 associated with the passage of time to indicate the reply 610 may be valid for an unusually long period of time. In another example, a particular reply 610 receives a mix of positive and negative feedback, which may be determined to be highly volatile and, therefore, set the rate of decay 712 to a shorter time frame to cause the reply to age more quickly.

Determining the rate of decay in step 702 and/or whether the rate of decay 712 should be incremented or decremented is, in one embodiment, a matter of design choice and may be further specific to a particular topic, the number of feedback elements received, the time between exposure to the question, topic, and/or reply, and/or other aspect of receiving inquiries and/or feedback replies for a particular topic. In another embodiment, the rate of decay 712 may be determined as a non-time-based event. For example, a topic related to a particular cellular telephone may have a rated decay associated with releases of new versions of the cellular telephone and/or features provided by competitors. However, should a particular response be associated with positive feedback in step 704, the rate of decay 712 may be reduced to indicate the associated reply is likely valid following the event. Alternatively, should feedback turn negative, the rate of decay in step 712 may be accelerated to indicate the reply may no longer be valid.

FIG. 8 depicts method 800 in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure. In another embodiment, process 600 begins with step 802 determining whether a unit of time has passed and/or an event has occurred, such as by execution by server 506 accessing a particular reply from knowledgebase 508. Next, step 804 determines whether any feedback has been received since the time or event has occurred. If step 804 is determined in the affirmative, step 806 then determines whether the feedback is positive, and thereby executes step 812, wherein the rate of decay of the reliability associated with a particular reply and/or topic is incremented. Or, if step 806 is determined in the negative, step 810 decrements the rate of decay.

If step 804 is determined in the negative, step 808 may then decrement the validity indicia associated with the reply and/or topic. Following the execution of steps 812, 810, or 808, process 800 may return to step 802 to continually monitor a particular event, reply, and/or topic and adjust the validity and/or rate of decay of the validity accordingly.

In the foregoing description, for the purposes of illustration, methods were described in a particular order. It should be appreciated that in alternate embodiments, the methods may be performed in a different order than that described. It should also be appreciated that the methods described above may be performed by hardware components or may be embodied in sequences of machine-executable instructions, which may be used to cause a machine, such as a general-purpose or special-purpose processor (e.g., GPU, CPU), or logic circuits programmed with the instructions to perform the methods (e.g., FPGA).

These machine-executable instructions may be stored on one or more machine-readable mediums, such as CD-ROMs or other type of optical disks, floppy diskettes, ROMs, RAMs, EPROMs, EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, flash memory, or other types of machine-readable mediums suitable for storing electronic instructions. Alternatively, the methods may be performed by a combination of hardware and software.

While machine-executable instructions may be stored and executed locally to a particular machine (e.g., personal computer, mobile computing device, laptop, etc.), it should be appreciated that the storage of data and/or instructions and/or the execution of at least a portion of the instructions may be provided via connectivity to a remote data storage and/or processing device or collection of devices, commonly known as “the cloud,” but may include a public, private, dedicated, shared and/or other service bureau, computing service, and/or “server farm.”

Examples of the processors as described herein may include, but are not limited to, at least one of Qualcomm® Snapdragon® 800 and 801, Qualcomm® Snapdragon® 610 and 615 with 4G LTE Integration and 64-bit computing, Apple® A7 processor with 64-bit architecture, Apple® M7 motion coprocessors, Samsung® Exynos® series, the Intel® Core™ family of processors, the Intel® Xeon® family of processors, the Intel® Atom™ family of processors, the Intel Itanium® family of processors, Intel® Core® i5-4670K and i7-4770K 22 nm Haswell, Intel® Core® i5-3570K 22 nm Ivy Bridge, the AMD® FX™ family of processors, AMD® FX-4300, FX-6300, and FX-8350 32 nm Vishera, AMD® Kaveri processors, Texas Instruments® Jacinto C6000™ automotive infotainment processors, Texas Instruments® OMAP™ automotive-grade mobile processors, ARM® Cortex™ processors, ARM® Cortex-A and ARM926EJ-S™ processors, other industry-equivalent processors, and may perform computational functions using any known or future-developed standard, instruction set, libraries, and/or architecture.

Any of the steps, functions, and operations discussed herein can be performed continuously and automatically.

The exemplary systems and methods of this invention have been described in relation to contact centers and communications between agents, customers, and contact center resources. However, to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the present invention, the preceding description omits a number of known structures and devices. This omission is not to be construed as a limitation of the scope of the claimed invention. Specific details are set forth to provide an understanding of the present invention. It should, however, be appreciated that the present invention may be practiced in a variety of ways beyond the specific detail set forth herein.

Furthermore, while the exemplary embodiments illustrated herein show the various components of the system collocated, certain components of the system can be located remotely, at distant portions of a distributed network, such as a LAN and/or the Internet, or within a dedicated system. Thus, it should be appreciated, that the components of the system can be combined into one or more devices, such as a server, or collocated on a particular node of a distributed network, such as an analog and/or digital telecommunications network, a packet-switched network, or a circuit-switched network. It will be appreciated from the preceding description, and for reasons of computational efficiency, that the components of the system can be arranged at any location within a distributed network of components without affecting the operation of the system. For example, the various components can be located in a switch such as a PBX and media server, gateway, in one or more communications devices, at one or more users' premises, or some combination thereof. Similarly, one or more functional portions of the system could be distributed between a telecommunications device(s) and an associated computing device.

Furthermore, it should be appreciated that the various links connecting the elements can be wired or wireless links, or any combination thereof, or any other known or later developed element(s) that is capable of supplying and/or communicating data to and from the connected elements. These wired or wireless links can also be secure links and may be capable of communicating encrypted information. Transmission media used as links, for example, can be any suitable carrier for electrical signals, including coaxial cables, copper wire, and fiber optics, and may take the form of acoustic or light waves, such as those generated during radio-wave and infra-red data communications.

Also, while the flowcharts have been discussed and illustrated in relation to a particular sequence of events, it should be appreciated that changes, additions, and omissions to this sequence can occur without materially affecting the operation of the invention.

In yet another embodiment, the systems and methods of this invention can be implemented in conjunction with a special purpose computer, a programmed microprocessor or microcontroller and peripheral integrated circuit element(s), an ASIC or other integrated circuit, a digital signal processor, a hard-wired electronic or logic circuit such as discrete element circuit, a programmable logic device or gate array such as PLD, PLA, FPGA, PAL, special purpose computer, any comparable means, or the like. In general, any device(s) or means capable of implementing the methodology illustrated herein can be used to implement the various aspects of this invention. Exemplary hardware that can be used for the present invention includes computers, handheld devices, telephones (e.g., cellular, Internet enabled, digital, analog, hybrids, and others), and other hardware known in the art. Some of these devices include processors (e.g., a single or multiple microprocessors), memory, nonvolatile storage, input devices, and output devices. Furthermore, alternative software implementations including, but not limited to, distributed processing or component/object distributed processing, parallel processing, or virtual machine processing can also be constructed to implement the methods described herein.

In yet another embodiment, the disclosed methods may be readily implemented in conjunction with software using object or object-oriented software development environments that provide portable source code that can be used on a variety of computer or workstation platforms. Alternatively, the disclosed system may be implemented partially or fully in hardware using standard logic circuits or VLSI design. Whether software or hardware is used to implement the systems in accordance with this invention is dependent on the speed and/or efficiency requirements of the system, the particular function, and the particular software or hardware systems or microprocessor or microcomputer systems being utilized.

In yet another embodiment, the disclosed methods may be partially implemented in software that can be stored on a storage medium, executed on programmed general-purpose computer with the cooperation of a controller and memory, a special purpose computer, a microprocessor, or the like. In these instances, the systems and methods of this invention can be implemented as a program embedded on a personal computer such as an applet, JAVA® or CGI script, as a resource residing on a server or computer workstation, as a routine embedded in a dedicated measurement system, system component, or the like. The system can also be implemented by physically incorporating the system and/or method into a software and/or hardware system.

Although the present invention describes components and functions implemented in the embodiments with reference to particular standards and protocols, the invention is not limited to such standards and protocols. Other similar standards and protocols not mentioned herein are in existence and are considered to be included in the present invention. Moreover, the standards and protocols mentioned herein and other similar standards and protocols not mentioned herein are periodically superseded by faster or more effective equivalents having essentially the same functions. Such replacement standards and protocols having the same functions are considered equivalents included in the present invention.

The present invention, in various embodiments, configurations, and aspects, includes components, methods, processes, systems and/or apparatus substantially as depicted and described herein, including various embodiments, subcombinations, and subsets thereof. Those of skill in the art will understand how to make and use the present invention after understanding the present disclosure. The present invention, in various embodiments, configurations, and aspects, includes providing devices and processes in the absence of items not depicted and/or described herein or in various embodiments, configurations, or aspects hereof, including in the absence of such items as may have been used in previous devices or processes, e.g., for improving performance, achieving ease, and/or reducing cost of implementation.

The foregoing discussion of the invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description. The foregoing is not intended to limit the invention to the form or forms disclosed herein. In the foregoing Detailed Description for example, various features of the invention are grouped together in one or more embodiments, configurations, or aspects for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. The features of the embodiments, configurations, or aspects of the invention may be combined in alternate embodiments, configurations, or aspects other than those discussed above. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed invention requires more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive aspects lie in less than all features of a single foregoing disclosed embodiment, configuration, or aspect. Thus, the following claims are hereby incorporated into this Detailed Description, with each claim standing on its own as a separate preferred embodiment of the invention.

Moreover, though the description of the invention has included description of one or more embodiments, configurations, or aspects and certain variations and modifications, other variations, combinations, and modifications are within the scope of the invention, e.g., as may be within the skill and knowledge of those in the art, after understanding the present disclosure. It is intended to obtain rights, which include alternative embodiments, configurations, or aspects to the extent permitted, including alternate, interchangeable and/or equivalent structures, functions, ranges, or steps to those claimed, whether or not such alternate, interchangeable and/or equivalent structures, functions, ranges, or steps are disclosed herein, and without intending to publicly dedicate any patentable subject matter. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A system, comprising: a data storage; a processor; and a network interface to facilitate communications between an agent of a contact center and a customer device associated with a customer; the processor: receives, via the network interface, a communication from the customer device associated, wherein the communication comprises text; upon determining the text comprises an inquiry, and further determining the inquiry comprises a topic, determining the topic is within a knowledgebase maintained by the data storage; accessing, from the data storage, a validity associated with a response to the topic, wherein the validity is determined, at least in part, by a validation factor; generating a reply, incorporating the response to the topic and an indicia of the validity; and sending, via the network interface, the reply.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the validity is determined solely by the validation factor.
 3. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor, upon determining the validity is below a previously determined threshold, performs the step of generating the reply comprising generating an alternative response, devoid of the response to the topic.
 4. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor performs sending the reply comprising, sending the reply to the agent and prompting the agent to provide an agent response incorporating the reply and cause the agent response to be sent to the customer device.
 5. The system of claim 4, wherein, the processor causes the validity associated with the response topic to be updated, in the data storage, in accord with the agent response.
 6. The system of claim 4, wherein, the processor causes a rate of decay associated with the validity associated with the response topic to be updated, in the data storage, in accord with the agent response.
 7. The system of claim 1, wherein the validation factor comprises a feedback from a prior customer receiving a prior reply generated from the response.
 8. The system of claim 1, wherein the validation factor comprises a feedback from a prior agent receiving a prior reply generated from the response.
 9. The system of claim 1, wherein the validation factor comprises the passage of time since the validity was determined.
 10. The system of claim 9, wherein the validation factor further comprises the passage of time since the validity was determined and a rate of decay was associated with the validity.
 11. The system of claim 1, wherein the validation factor comprises an event associated with the topic that occurred after the validity was determined.
 12. A method, comprising: receiving, by a processor, via a network interface configured to facilitate communications between an agent of a contact center and a customer device associated with a customer, a communication from the customer device associated and wherein the communication comprises text; upon determining, by the processor, the text comprises an inquiry, and further determining the inquiry comprises a topic, determining the topic is within a knowledgebase maintained by a data storage; accessing, by the processor from the data storage, a validity associated with a response to the topic, wherein the validity is determined, at least in part, by a validation factor; generating, by the processor, a reply incorporating the response to the topic and an indicia of the validity; and sending, via the network interface, the reply.
 13. The method of claim 12, wherein determining validity, at least in part, by the validation factor further comprises determining validity solely by the validation factor.
 14. The method of claim 12, wherein sending the reply, further comprises: sending, by the processor via the network interface, the reply to an agent; and causing, by the processor, the agent to be prompted to provide an agent response incorporating the reply and cause the agent response to be sent to the customer device.
 15. The method of claim 14, further comprising, causing, by the processor, the validity associated with the response topic to be updated, in the data storage, in accord with the agent response.
 16. The method of claim 15, further comprising, causing, by the processor, the validity associated with the response topic to be updated, in the data storage, in accord with the agent response and a rate of decay associated with the validity.
 17. The method of claim 15, further comprising, incorporating an accessed feedback from a prior customer receiving a prior reply generated from the response as the validation factor.
 18. The method of claim 1, wherein the validation factor comprises the passage of time since the validity was determined.
 19. The method of claim 18, wherein the validation factor further comprises the passage of time since the validity was determined and a rate of decay associated with the validity.
 20. A system, comprising: means for receiving, by a processor, via a network interface configured to facilitate communications between an agent of a contact center and a customer device associated with a customer, a communication from the customer device associated and wherein the communication comprises text; means for upon determining, by the processor, the text comprises an inquiry, and further determining the inquiry comprises a topic, determining the topic is within a knowledgebase maintained by a data storage; means for accessing, by the processor from the data storage, a validity associated with a response to the topic, wherein the validity is determined, at least in part, by a validation factor; means for generating, by the processor, a reply incorporating the response to the topic and an indicia of the validity; and means for sending, via the network interface, the reply. 